Park Predators - The Shelter

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

When two young lovers are found brutally murdered in a designated park shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, authorities work quickly to capture their killer. The man they come face-to-face though with has a dark past and list of even more victims across two U.S. states. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit parkpredators.com  Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the story I have for you today is one that involves two young people in the prime of their life who had all intentions of making a difference in the world. They found a way to combine their love of the outdoors with their passion for helping others, which I feel is a running theme for a lot of the cases and victims I talk about on Park Predators. running theme for a lot of the cases and victims I talk about on Park Predators. Their story stood out to me for a lot of reasons, and it'll probably be a case you won't forget easily either, mostly because of how violent the crime was and how brazen the suspect was to commit such an act on one of the most popular hiking trails in North America. It takes place along the Appalachian Trail, specifically on a stretch of it that goes through Cove Mountain, which is about a half hour northwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

According to the trail's conservancy website, the AT, as most people know it, spans roughly 2,200 miles and crosses over 14 states along the east coast of the U.S. For a typical backpacker, the trek takes on average about five to seven months to complete from beginning to end. backpacker, the trek takes on average about five to seven months to complete from beginning to end. Thousands of hikers traverse it each year, but only about one in four succeed in completing the entire journey. The victims in this story were two of those determined hikers to see it through to the end. They thoughtfully planned out their rest stops, lodging, and of course sightseeing, but what was waiting for them at a trail shelter in the fall of 1990 remains one of the most horrific crimes to mar the Appalachian Trail, and it forever shattered the lives of two families. This is Park Predators. On the afternoon of Thursday, September 13, 1990,

Brian Bowen, who everyone knew by his nickname Biff, and his wife Cindy took a break after hiking hours on the Appalachian Trail. They pit-stopped for some much-needed food and rest in the town of Duncannon, Pennsylvania. The Bowens had been hiking the AT all the way from Maine. They were headed southbound, and like so many of their fellow hikers, they needed to stop in town here and there on occasion to refresh their supplies. Duncannon was small, but definitely a site for sore eyes for anyone needing a break from the brutal toil of a long stretch on the AT. Back in 1990, there were three bars, a grocery store, and two video stores, and a row of one-story buildings on Main Street in the

town. But other than that, that was pretty much it. Duncannon is nestled at the bottom of Cove Mountain and is considered by some to be the halfway point on the AT. It was a welcome oasis to hikers like the Bowens who were looking for a place to rest, wash their clothes, make some phone calls, pick up their mail, or just have a few beers. The spot that most strangers passing through town seemed to wind up at was the Doyle Hotel, a run-down historic hotel that charged roughly $11 a night for a room and had cheap draft beer and hot food. And the Bowens took full advantage of that. While they drank their beers and ate pizza for lunch, they read through the hotel's register log. As they scanned several handwritten entries from other hikers who'd been by the hotel, they spotted one entry that caught their eye.

It was made on September 12th, the day before they arrived in the town. It read, quote, as we hear it, we're about mid-slip of the southbounders moving down. Oops, getting food on the book. Good food too. Time to go. Cleavis and Neljean, end quote. Biff and Cindy immediately recognized those names, Cleavis and Neljean. They'd been trailing the couple who called themselves by those names for weeks, and they really felt like they knew them, though they hadn't actually met them in person. Biff and Cindy assumed the names were pseudonyms or trail names that the folks up ahead of them were using while on the AT. I've talked about trail names before in previous seasons, but trail names are super common and

really popular for people who spend months on end hiking major trail systems or parks. It's a way of adopting a sort of pseudo-identity while on the rugged journey through terrain that feels like another world compared to where most hikers' normal lives are. The Bowens used trail names too. They called themselves the Lone Moccasins. Based on their own progress,

Cindy and Biff did the math and figured that Cleavis and Neljean weren't too far ahead of them and more than likely would have been staying on Cove Mountain at the Thelma Marks shelter, a three-sided lean-to that provided coverage for thru-hikers. That was actually going to be Biff and Cindy's next stop, so it was only a matter of time before they would eventually meet their trail name friends. After wrapping up in Duncannon, Biff and Cindy began their roughly two-hour hike from town

to the Thelma Marks Trail Shelter. Around 6 p.m. that evening, they arrived and right away sensed that something was wrong. The spot was completely silent, and that had never been the case before with any trail shelter they'd walked up on on the AT. Usually there were people walking around, talking, or setting up their hiking gear for the next day. As the couple got closer and closer to the actual shelter structure, Biff noticed random hiking supplies and pieces of trash scattered all over the ground.

He knew this was super unusual because most hikers were conscious enough to tidy up and keep outdoor areas free of debris. With each step they took, Biff and Cindy knew that something was very, very off about the scene that they just walked into. So in an act of caution, Biff stuck out one of his hiking poles in front of him, using it as a makeshift weapon, and he carefully approached the entrance to the shelter. When he peered inside, he immediately noticed bloodstains everywhere.

He told Cindy to stay behind him and went further in to investigate. Once he was all the way inside, he found the bloodied bodies of a man and a woman laying on the floor. The man was laying in a back corner of the structure on his back, with his head sitting on some blankets and fabric that appeared to be a makeshift pillow. In his hand was a white shirt. The woman's body was sprawled out in the middle of the shelter, lying face down in a pool of her own blood. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back with some rope. Biff and Cindy were horrified by the scene, and even though they had no way of knowing for sure who the dead couple was,

in their gut they had a strong suspicion that it was Cleavis and Neljean, the couple who'd been only miles ahead of them their entire time on the AT. Alarm bells were screaming in Biff and Cindy's minds, but they were somewhat helpless. One, they had no idea if whoever had done this was still in the area. And two, this is 1990 in the wilderness. There were no cell phones to just dial up the cops and report two dead bodies. The only option the couple had was to hike two hours back to Duncannon and call the police to report what they'd found. According to news reports, Biff and Cindy hightailed it back to town in record time, shaving the two-hour hike in half to roughly one hour. Then they used a public phone

to alert the authorities. Within a matter of minutes of the report coming in, Pennsylvania State Police troopers raced to the Thelma Marks shelter. Based on what they'd been told, troopers knew they were more than likely dealing with a double homicide scene. The big challenge first responders faced was that by the time Biff and Cindy were able to report the bodies, night had fallen in the woods. The scene was pretty much pitch black. And to make matters worse, the section of the AT. The scene was pretty much pitch black. And to make matters worse, the section of the AT that the shelter was on was not a place police could just drive up to, park their cruisers, and hop out. Investigators had to climb Cove Mountain to even get near the shelter, and then they had to walk about a hundred yards down the same rocky slopes

Biff and Cindy had traversed before detectives could physically get to the scene. After about an hour or two of hiking, Pennsylvania State Police, along with the National Park Service, finally arrived, and it took only a few minutes for their worst fears to be confirmed. There, inside the shelter, were the two bodies. The male victim appeared to have suffered several gunshot wounds, and authorities surmised that because he was laying on his back, face up, he'd likely been attacked while sleeping. He was lanky, had fair skin, a head of light brown fluffy hair, a scraggly beard, and distinctively thick eyebrows. Detectives found the female victim face down in the middle of the shelter with several deep stab wounds all over her body. She had a solid athletic frame,

short blonde hair, tan skin, and she wasn't very tall. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene. As more investigators arrived and crime scene techs began processing the shelter, the detectives noticed that the couple's hiking and camping gear appeared to have been ransacked. Basic camping supplies, clothing, and trash were thrown all around the inside and outside of the shelter. Because of all that chaos, it was hard at first for investigators to tell what, if anything, was missing or had been taken. But after spending more time at the scene, two things became pretty obvious to the police. There was only one

backpack, and the male victim's shoes were missing. Those two things felt kind of strange, because authorities felt like whoever the couple was, they seemed like they were experienced hikers and more than likely would have both had their own backpacks and the man would not have been hiking without boots. Investigators theorized the killer might have taken both of those items after committing the murders. The only other things missing from the scene were the murder weapons, which would have had to have been a knife and a gun. During a grid search of the immediate area, police officers inspected nearby shelters and caves looking for anything that might be a clue, but they didn't find a knife and they didn't find a gun. There was no blood trail to follow,

or bullets, or anything. They found a few beer cans, but those cans weren't even that suspicious because authorities knew that shelters off the AT were popular hangouts for local teenagers. So finding remnants of a party, like beer cans, wasn't that out of the ordinary. I don't know if authorities took these beer cans into evidence or not just to be safe, but the source material for this case isn't clear on that detail. According to Michael Argento's reporting for the York Daily Record, a few hours after the victims were discovered and transported to the Perry County Coroner's Office, authorities were able to identify them as 26-year-old Jeffrey Hood and 25-year-old Molly LaRue. The source material isn't super clear on how the coroner identified the victims, but I have to think that because they were found with most of their belongings, maybe their driver's licenses or IDs were with them. They were identified within just a few short hours, and I don't think at that point

any of their family members or next of kin could have been notified. According to several news reports, the autopsy results revealed Jeff had been shot three times, once in his head, once in his chest, and once in his back with a.22 caliber firearm. According to the pathologist, the shots themselves did not kill Jeff right away. The exam showed that he'd slowly bled to death over the span of several minutes. Molly's autopsy results were equally horrific. Bruising and other signs of trauma on her body and throat indicated that she'd been bound with some type of rope around her neck and wrists. She'd also been sexually assaulted and then eventually stabbed at least eight times in her back and throat.

According to an article by Strange Outdoors, the wounds on Molly's body had been inflicted by an 8 3⁄4-inch double-edged blade, which, to just give you some context, is pretty long, in the ballpark of like an average hunting knife, not like a small switch blade Swiss army knife type of weapon. The coroner also retrieved a semen sample during his examination. At the time, labs that processed that kind of evidence took months to turn results around, so for the time being, investigators had to wait and see if it came back as a match for Jeff,

which would make sense, or if it was related to some other unknown male, likely the killer. The coroner estimated that Molly and Jeff had both died between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. on September 13th, roughly 12 hours before Biff and Cindy discovered them. On Friday, September 14th, the day after the bodies were found, news reports about the double homicide hit headlines

and became the top story in local publications. Sometime before those articles identifying the victims hit the airwaves, though, Glenda Hood, Jeff's mother, heard a quick radio report about two hikers being murdered on the Appalachian Trail near Duncannon, Pennsylvania. Even though the reports didn't mention the hikers' names, Glenda's stomach sank. She'd last heard from her son a few days earlier when he'd called from Duncannon. Their conversation had been especially memorable because Jeff had told his mom that he and his girlfriend Molly had some big news, some exciting news to share. Jeff wouldn't go into detail or tell Glenda over the phone what the news was because he

said he and Molly wanted to share it in person with their families. Like any good mom, Glenda strongly suspected the couple was going to announce they'd gotten engaged, but she didn't push the subject. She told Jeff everyone in the family would just breathlessly wait to hear what the excitement was when the families got together for a planned reunion the following week in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. After that, Glenda hung up with her son, and that was that. But after hearing the radio announcement on September 14th about two hikers being murdered on the AT near where she knew Jeff had been,

Glenda couldn't just dwell on her nagging thoughts about their previous conversation or think that he could be a potential victim. She knew she had to call Molly's parents too. She had to know. Had they heard from Molly? According to several news reports on this case, when Molly's father Jim picked up the phone when Glenda called him, he said he felt in his gut that Jeff and Molly were the murder victims

that the radio broadcasters had been talking about. He later told news outlets that he couldn't explain why he felt so sure of that feeling in that moment, but he just said he had a sense that they were gone. Within a matter of hours on September 14th, police detectives working the murder investigation got in touch with Glenda and Jim and told them the devastating news about what had happened. It's kind of odd and honestly heartbreaking to me that Molly and Jeff's parents and family had to find out about the murders from

the news, but I guess because everything in the investigation was happening so fast between late at night on the 13th and into the early morning on the 14th, there was just overlap between when authorities knew who the victims were and when they were able to officially notify Molly and Jeff's loved ones. By the end of the week, though, police had a pretty good idea of how Molly and Jeff were killed and when they were killed. According to reporting by Earl Swift, Molly and Jeff had a shared trail journal

that they took turns writing in every step of their journey. The journal was found at the crime scene. They'd also made a point to sign logbooks along the way using their trail names, Cleavis and Neljean. So police had detailed knowledge of their movements in the days leading up to their deaths. The big things police needed to pin down were where they'd been, what they'd been doing, and who they'd come across right before being killed. Authorities also wanted to learn what had brought Molly and and jeff to hike the at in the first place

for that information they turned to their family and friends and witnesses along the at to help fill in the details according to paul news bombs reporting for the philadelphia inquirer 26 year old jeff had graduated from the university of tennessee with a degree in secondary education but working day in and day out in a classroom just didn't suit him. He liked to teach kids about nature and science in the outdoors and share his love of the world in that way. Molly was an artist and social worker from Shaker Heights, Ohio, who loved the outdoors as well.

She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with an art teaching degree. According to the Inquirer, in 1989, the couple met in Kansas while working as counselors for a program called Passport for Adventure. The program helped troubled kids and teens with social and behavioral issues by taking them out of their triggering environments. It introduced them to nature for extended hiking and camping trips in the Western US.

Both Molly and Jeff were accomplished campers and had a passion for helping underprivileged kids. In early 1990, they learned they were going to be laid off from their jobs, which wasn't awesome, but Molly and Jeff made the best of it. They used the opportunity to make plans to hike the entire AT, starting in Maine and aiming to end in Georgia. Paul Nussbaum reported that Molly drained her savings account and over a matter of a few weeks, the couple meticulously planned out their hike. They mapped out which shelters they would stay in and how many miles per day they wanted to average. They pinned down every last detail, including which specific towns they needed to stop in to replenish their supplies. According to Earl Swift's article for Outside Online titled Murder on the Appalachian Trail, authorities were

able to backtrack Molly and Jeff's movements fairly well. They learned that the couple had set out on their journey on June 4th and they planned to take six months to complete it. Their trail log entries indicated that at no point had they reported being followed or harassed. In fact, according to Swift's piece, the couple's log entries were always upbeat and respectfully admired other hikers on the AT. They even gave friendly shout-outs to park workers who helped them navigate their trek. Based on what Molly and Jeff wrote in the books, it turns out they were extremely slow hikers, intentionally. For example, Jeff once acknowledged in one of the entries, quote, If you are behind us, you will pass us, end quote.

in one of the entries, quote, if you are behind us, you will pass us, end quote. They were going slow because he and Molly liked to stop and take photos or study plants and animals that they saw along the way. Based on the locations and time logs of their previous entries, authorities learned that on a regular basis, Molly and Jeff would start hiking

much later in the morning than most backpackers, and they would usually wrap up their days sooner than most other people traversing the AT. Some of Jeff's entries talked about how they truly were just there to enjoy the sights of the trail as much as possible, and if they got behind, that was okay with them. Whether it was their own fault or a result of them stopping to help fellow hikers, the couple was okay with taking it slow and steady. Even though they lacked a sense of urgency, Molly and Jeff weren't amateurs by any means. Several people law enforcement interviewed who'd come forward to say they

interacted with the couple along the trail reported that both of them seemed to be very experienced with survival skills and hiking. One of the last trail log entries for the couple that caught investigators' attention was an entry they'd made while camping at a shelter just north of the Susquehanna River. The entry was dated for a week before they were killed. Jeff wrote, quote, We reached the Allentown shelter for breakfast. There we met Paul, whom we talked with quite a while. He is a 15-year-old who was kicked out of his house. We talked about some different ideas for him to try. End quote. To me, that really shows how passionate this couple was about helping others,

especially young people. They weren't getting paid to counsel this young boy, they simply wanted to help him. Their kindness was evident in everything they did, and I think you can hear that in the words from that last entry. According to Earl Swift's reporting, Jeff was laid to rest in his hometown of Signal Mountain, Tennessee on Monday, September 17th, four days after the murders. Two days after his funeral, Molly's family buried her in a family plot. As authorities chipped away at establishing the couple's timeline leading up to their deaths, they checked with the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, and they discovered that Molly and Jeff had stayed the night there on September 11th. Detectives then spoke with Molly's great-aunt, who proved

to be a valuable witness. She said she'd last seen the couple in Duncannon on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 12th. She told police that she'd met Molly and Jeff in town that morning and they'd spent a few hours hanging out together in the town square. They ate lunch together at a nearby truck stop and the couple had also picked up some mail

at the local post office. After that, they'd done some shopping at a grocery store before saying goodbye and leaving on foot for the Thelma Mark shelter. When Molly's great-aunt last saw them, it was around 3.45 p.m. on September 12th. Based on everyone police had talked to up until that point, investigators realized that Molly's aunt was the last person to see the couple alive. The challenge for investigators, though, was figuring out who had come across Molly and Jeff on the AT between 3.45 p.m. on September 12th and 6 a.m. on September 13th. A week after the world learned about Molly and Jeff's murders, the news sent the outdoors community and everyone who was hiking the AT into a frenzy.

Authorities asked campers and hikers all along the trail to be cautious and call in tips or information if they saw anyone who looked suspicious or out of place. Investigators' hope was that someone would come forward with a piece of information that would help them identify who had killed Molly and Jeff. By that point, law enforcement's prevailing theory was that whoever had committed the crime was not someone who knew Molly and Jeff. Detectives strongly suspected, just based on the crime scene, that whoever the killer was was someone who'd purposely gone into the woods with bad intentions, and they'd seen Molly and Jeff as victims of opportunity. No one, including police and their families, felt Molly and Jeff had been personally targeted in any way. They had no history of fights or disputes with people on the AT,

and neither of them had a criminal record. The York Daily News reported that following the murders, investigators got flooded with calls about out-of-place people spotted on the trail. The investigators followed up on each lead, but they came up empty-handed. On September 22nd, 10 days after the crime, a composite sketch of a man authorities indicated was a person they wanted to speak with appeared on the front page of the Sentinel newspaper.

It's unclear from the source material what specific tip led to this composite sketch being drawn up, but the day after it came out, two hikers came forward and told National Park Service rangers that they'd seen a man matching that description hiking near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. For reference, Harpers Ferry is about 100 miles south of Duncannon and was another popular pit stop for through hikers on the Appalachian Trail. These witnesses said the guy they'd seen was carrying an overstuffed backpack and the way he was holding it indicated to them that he didn't seem to be an experienced hiker.

Now, I don't know if this guy was just glaringly out of place or what exactly is the proper etiquette for carrying an oversized backpack, but I guess these hikers just felt like their interaction with the man was suspicious enough that they decided to call it in. And thank God they did, because when authorities tracked the suspicious guy down, they discovered something alarming about his attire. Most importantly, what he was wearing on his feet. While investigating the tip from the hikers in Harper's Ferry, detectives located and interviewed a 38-year-old man named David Casey Horn.

David closely matched the tipster's description and very much resembled the man in the composite sketch that authorities had issued to the media days earlier. When detectives stopped David, he was carrying an overstuffed backpack that was the same color and brand as the backpack that police had learned Jeff Hood owned. But probably even more suspicious than that was the fact that officers found a.22 caliber pistol and a knife on David. While questioning him about where he got those items and where he'd been on September 12th and 13th, detectives looked down at David's feet and they were shocked to see that he was wearing boots that seemed to match the same description as the ones missing from Jeff's body. Very much convinced they had a prime suspect, authorities took David into custody. When they booked him, they ran his fingerprints, and wouldn't you know it, he had an outstanding warrant from the FBI for murder. What was strange, though, was that David's fingerprints and federal warrant didn't come back to a David Casey Horn, they matched the identity of a man

named Paul David Cruz. Police quickly realized that David Horn was just an alias and that the man they had in custody was actually Paul Cruz. Paul was a wanted fugitive who was suspected of committing a violent murder in 1986 in Bartow, Florida. According to the New York Times, Paul was originally from Florida and one of seven siblings who'd been adopted at the age of nine by Susan Cruz and her husband. The Times reported that from a young age, Paul had shown signs that he was deeply troubled and depressed. Throughout grade school, he was a poor student, and by the time he graduated and became an adult, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. That career didn't last long, though, because after multiple attempts to take his own life,

he was dishonorably discharged. Throughout his 20s and 30s, Paul never held a steady job, and he struggled with drug and alcohol use. According to a Los Angeles Times article, during the early 80s, Paul lived with his biological brother, Donald Horn, and Donald's girlfriend, Vanessa Simmons, in North Carolina. A quick side note, the LA Times article also mentions that Vanessa was, quote, partially paralyzed because Donald shot her in the head with a sawed-off shotgun during an argument,

end quote. So, just based off of that, I think it's safe to say that a violent streak definitely ran in Paul's biological family. Anyway, by the mid-80s, Paul stopped living with Donald and by 1986 had returned to Florida. According to the FBI, that same year in July, a 56-year-old Bartow resident named Clemmie Jewel Arnold was found nude and nearly decapitated on an abandoned railroad bed.

Her throat had been slashed six times. When investigators working that case searched Clemmy's car for clues, they found a bundle of bloody clothes and a knife that they believed to be the murder weapon. When they ran forensic testing on those items, the results had come back as a match for Paul Cruz. After just days of investigating, the FBI determined that the location where Clemmy's body had been dumped was just steps away from a makeshift home Paul had built for himself. Clemmie's body had been dumped was just steps away from a makeshift home Paul had built for himself. And on top of that, witnesses had come forward stating they'd seen Clemmie alive with Paul shortly before she was killed. Needless to say, the evidence the FBI had against Paul

in Clemmie Arnold's case was overwhelming. Earl Swift reported that when Paul learned the feds were closing in on him, he fled Florida and he went back to his older brother Donald's house in North Carolina. From there, he somehow avoided apprehension for four years and bounced around working odd jobs, never staying in one place for too long. Fast forward to 1990, and by the time the authorities in Pennsylvania arrested Paul for Molly and Jeff's murders, they'd established a loose timeline of his movements leading up to the killings. They learned from speaking with some of Paul's former employers that shortly before the murders, he'd taken a job as a farmhand on a South Carolina tobacco farm. Those that knew him described him as a quiet and very secretive person. On September 5th, 1990, he'd abruptly left that job on the tobacco farm and bought a one-way ticket headed north on a Greyhound bus.

He'd gotten off the bus in Winchester, Virginia, then started hitchhiking for rides. A few days after that, he'd walked into a library in eastern Berlin, Pennsylvania, looking for hiking maps of the Appalachian Trail. On Tuesday, September 11th, 1990, the day before Molly and Jeff were killed, Paul had been spotted near the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

According to news reports, a woman named Karen Lutz was surveying a piece of property designated to be a new portion of a footpath along the Turnpike when she noticed a disheveled man lingering near the roadway. Karen figured the guy was just a drifter because he wasn't wearing backpacking or hiking gear. He was sporting a flannel shirt, jeans, and combat boots. Slung across his shoulder was a red gym bag with a Marlboro logo on it. Two hours later, after first spotting the man, Karen saw him again. This time he was walking on what Karen knew to be a section of the AT. She figured she was wrong about the man after all, and he was a hiker,

just not a very well-equipped one. At the time, Karen didn't report the man as suspicious because there was no reason for her to think that he was. Sure, she later told reporters that the man unnerved her, but she didn't think much about him after seeing him. It wasn't until Paul's arrest was announced that his picture was blasted all over the news, and Karen came forward with her information. According to reporting by the Charlotte Observer, after his arrest, Paul was held in Martinsburg, West Virginia and waived extradition to Pennsylvania. Two months later, on November 17th, 1990,

he was brought back to Pennsylvania to face charges for first-degree murder. He was held in the Perry County Prison without bail and remained there while prosecutors built their case. According to multiple news reports, at his arraignment on December 14th, Paul entered a plea of not guilty for the charges against him, and his defense attorney told reporters,

quote, There is a lot of circumstantial evidence. There is no eyewitness testimony, end quote. His attorney repeatedly emphasized that Paul had no motive for the crime. Perry County District Attorney Scott Kramer announced shortly after that that the state would be seeking the death penalty in the case. Kramer felt confident he could secure a guilty verdict because the evidence he was planning to present in court pointed strongly at Paul. For one, prosecutors had multiple eyewitnesses who could place Paul

on the Appalachian Trail in the same vicinity as Molly and Jeff around the time they were killed. To add to that, police had found the same caliber firearm and large-sized knife on Paul when he was arrested. And lastly, Paul was carrying Jeff's backpack and wearing his hiking boots. All of those incriminating factors made the state feel certain they had the right man. Seven months after the crime, in May of 1991, Paul's trial got underway. According to several news outlets who reported at the trial, the prosecution outlined for the jury specific details of how they'd learned Jeff and Molly were killed. They walked jurors through how Jeff was mercilessly shot in the head, back, and chest while sleeping, and then how he slowly bled to death. They went into

painstaking details of how Molly's arms were bound so tightly her bindings had left marks that cut into her wrists. They also detailed how she'd been brutally sexually assaulted and then viciously stabbed over and over again. The state then listed off all of the overwhelming evidence investigators had found against Paul. The stolen clothing, the backpack, Jeff's boots, and the gun and knife that matched perfectly to the wounds the coroner had found on the victims. According to the Sentinel, Paul's former boss at the tobacco farm in South Carolina also testified that Paul had purchased the eight-inch, three-quarter-long knife while working for him because he said he liked it and used to have one similar to it. The prosecution's case wasn't just circumstantial by the time it went to trial.

Prosecutors had the FBI lab do DNA testing on the sample of semen found at the crime scene, and those results showed that the sample was a very close genetic match to Paul. It wasn't a dead ringer though, but I have to assume that was probably because DNA testing in the early 90s was in its infancy, and the labs back then just didn't have the ability to make a 100% positive match. The research material that's out there on this case doesn't specifically say how close of a match the semen from the scene was to Paul's DNA, but according to the Sentinel, an FBI agent testified at trial that the samples were, quote, strong association, end quote.

To make matters worse for Paul, ballistics tests on the.22 pistol police seized from him showed that bullets fired from that handgun matched the slugs that had been removed from Jeff's body. In closing arguments, D.A. Kramer stated, quote, Nothing will bring Jeff and Molly back. They're dead, and death is forever. But justice demands a conviction for both counts of first-degree murder, and so I ask you to find, end quote. According to the morning call, after only 49 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Paul David Cruz guilty of killing Molly LaRue and Jeff Hood. A judge sentenced him to death by lethal injection on May 25th, 1991.

According to Pennsylvania state law, death penalty convictions are automatically appealed to the Supreme Court. So Paul and his attorneys filed an appeal and continued to fight his execution incessantly for years. A lot about the night Molly and Jeff died remained a mystery, and to this day still does. For example, authorities were never able to pinpoint when exactly Paul showed up to the shelter

or if Jeff and Molly ever had a chance. Investigators felt in their gut that more than likely Paul had ambushed the couple the night of September 12th or early in the morning on the 13th. Most likely, he killed Jeff first. Then, Paul kept Molly alive for a while longer before ultimately killing her too. Police theorized that based on the evidence, Paul likely attacked the couple because they

had supplies that he wanted and he'd already committed a murder in Florida, so taking another person's life in order to get what he wanted didn't faze him all that much. Just shy of a year after his trial and conviction, Paul was tried and convicted in Florida for Clemmie Arnold's murder and a judge sentenced him to life in prison. In the aftermath of Molly and Jeff's murders, their friends and family were determined not to let their deaths be in vain, and to not let what happened deter other people from traversing the Appalachian Trail, or any other beautiful landscape.

Jim LaRue told reporter Earl Swift, quote, Jim LaRue told reporter Earl Swift, We kept getting comments like, Well, do you feel the trail is too dangerous to use? And should it be shut down? That's when Molly's voice would come up and tell me, If you ever let my death be an excuse for anything happening to the trail,

I'll never forgive you. End quote. Molly's dad wasn't alone in that thought. The families knew what hiking in the outdoors meant to Molly and Jeff, and they took on a sort of role in defending the legacy of the AT. Jeff's sister hiked the trail in 1991, completing what her brother started but never finished. Jeff's mom Glenda also revisited the site several times. She climbed Cove Mountain on the first Mother's Day after the murders.

She said she made the journey because she wanted to feel Jeff's presence and find a way to feel connected to her son again. She said that she wanted that place to be something more than just the place where Jeff and Molly died. According to the Baltimore Sun, in the fall of 2000, a decade after the killings, Molly's parents and Glenda hiked to the summit of Cove Mountain to dedicate a new shelter just yards from where their children had been murdered. They were joined by 40 other hikers while they unveiled the Cove Mountain Shelter. That shelter replaced the Thelma Marks Shelter, which was eventually torn down. In 2006, Perry County prosecutors in Pennsylvania agreed to let the court change Paul Cruz's sentence from death to serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors did this so

that Paul and his legal team would stop filing constant appeals. Normally, a move like this to resentence a murderer would ruffle some feathers with the victim's families, but not in this case. According to Earl Swift's reporting, Jim LaRue spoke at Paul's 2006 resentencing and gave a powerful statement he hoped would resonate with his daughter's killer. He said, quote, Paul, I am here today to offer forgiveness for what you have done. I wish that you can now find peace. Molly had decided to devote her life to working with troubled children, like you certainly were. Paul, I think it would be great if you could pick up where Molly left off, starting with yourself. Help the Mollies of this world learn who you are

and try to enlist the help of other inmates to help with this effort. You are a gold mine of critical information that needs to be unearthed. Peace be with you, brother. Peace be with you." I don't know that I would have the strength to forgive the person who stole my child from me, especially because throughout Paul's trial and everything that came afterward, he never once provided a statement or reason as to why he killed Molly and Jeff. He never showed any signs of remorse and remained stoically silent about the entire incident. Even though Paul never provided more information or took responsibility for his crimes, the impact that Jeff and Molly's lives and tragic story had on people all over the world reached far beyond the sadness of what happened to them. I couldn't possibly cover in this episode how much their

lives influenced other people's. They were two people who were doing good in the world and wanted to see society become better. According to an article on Ohio Wesleyan University's website, Jim LaRue said the couple wanted to go back to school and start programs related to social work, camping, and hiking. Sadly, they never got that chance, and they never got to see how their dreams might have brought about change in the world. It would be impossible to include all of the kind anecdotes I came across about Molly and Jeff, but the consensus from every article I've read on their case was that they were exceptional people who deserved better, and I think that everyone who hears their story should remember that. Despite the dark shadow Molly and

Jeff's murders cast over the Appalachian Trail during the 90s, the trail continues to attract millions of people to this day. Hikers from all over the world, from all different backgrounds, still form deep bonds with one another as they share their trail names and stories of their struggles along the way. And I think that's exactly what Molly LaRue and Jeff Hood would have wanted. Park Predators is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?